Quick Review: TSIOQUE

This princess don’t need no savior!

I don't care if the wizard said not to make
noise. I'm gonna, because he's a meanie.

Developed by OhNoo Studio and Smiled, published by the former, and released on November 7th, 2018, TSIOQUE (pronounced “chiock”) is about a young princess in a difficult situation. Her mother the Queen left to hunt the monsters endangering the Kingdom, leaving the castle in charge of the court wizard. He immediately took over and transformed it into a dark place, full of demonic guards, and imprisoned Princess Tsioque into the dungeon. It’s up to her to escape and flee, always while being careful with her every step… for the wizard, hard at work on his nebulous plans, requests the utmost silence.

Reminder: This very young princess is fighting
some guy that throws other soldiers at her.

This game follows the formula of point-and-click titles: Look around a room to pick up items, make items interact with the surroundings, solve puzzles to progress. The difference, here, is that most of the game is done without dialogue. Some characters talk during cutscenes, especially the wizard and the framing device of the story book, with the tale told in rhyme. However, no word is ever said by the princess, though she does offer commentary and advice, the usuals from a point-and-click: “Nothing left here”, “I am still missing something”, “this won’t work”, etc.

Why does this guy remind me of a villain I've seen before
in a cartoon from the 2000s?

I don't think she signed up for helping the guards
training with crossbows.

It’s also fully animated in 2D. The game looks fantastic, I have no issues with the look itself. The downside is that, as this is a point-and-click, you’ll be going back and forth a lot, looking for the next item needed to solve a puzzle, and none of the animations can be skipped, making the game a tad slow to play as a result. It’s also not always clear where you can go or what you can pick up or interact with, unless you carefully inspect every detail of each screen. It is, however, very interesting to watch, especially as the castle changes through Princess Tsioque’s quest.

She's going to need that magic bag very soon!

Several puzzles are clever; in one instance, after getting a broken magic bag that can hold anything, you have to repair said bag, leading to a sewing mini-game. In another instance, a chase down a staircase becomes a skill test in which you click buttons on the screen like QTEs. One thing I wished I had known early on (and only learned with a guide) was that, in some animated sequences where the inventory isn’t available, sometimes it will appear mid-scene… and as a result you have a very limited window of time to react with the right item. That sort of scenario comes up a couple times, usually in response to attacks from enemies.

This one is such a charming title. Between the hand-drawn animation, the engaging soundtrack, and the various challenges, we have here a high-quality product that offers a pretty singular experience – not without its small number of flaws (some which I’ve covered in previous paragraphs), but not enough to detract from its strengths. The plot seems simple at first, but it has a couple surprises in store – and the ending is excellent. The animation is really cool, and impressive in places.

First rule of a wizard duel: Don't be in the middle
of a wizard duel.

Suddenly, QTEs. Good luck!

It’s fun to see the young princess overcoming those incredible odds. There are scenes that are quite tense as well, because of the dangers she finds herself in. some of those scenes are possible because they're fully-animated, compared to other point-and-click games out there. Some screens are large – the Courtyard, as an example, has roughly 10 places the princess can go to, so part of the challenge will be to figure out which item to grab in which sector, and then, what to use it for. (Heck, the first time I got to the Courtyard, I can think of one or two paths I didn't know about – in part because there didn't seem to be a way for the Princess to go there, so I had dismissed them as unreachable, and yet they were necessary to progress.)

Alchemy For Children: A Beginner's Class.

You’ll be seeing some death/capture animations a lot, but thankfully the game is lenient and will take you back to the previous screen. The game is fairly short as well, and can be completed in about three hours, which is still pretty respectable for a hand-drawn title. There's a nice variety to the puzzles, and some recurring motifs help ground the story and the world it's set in. It’s a good gaming experience and I recommend it.

TSIOQUE is usually available on Steam for 13.99$ USD, currently for 7.69$ during Winter Sale.